


Legacy

by K (Thiswasmydesign)



Series: Secret Shinigami 2018 [1]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, Secret Shinigami Exchange 2018, Short One Shot, after kira, double gift!, sayu!Kira, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thiswasmydesign/pseuds/K
Summary: Secret shinigami exchange 2018, prompt ; Sayu becoming the second Kira and finding out that Light is the first Kira.





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catfishmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=catfishmaster).



> For secret Shinigami exchange and posted slightly earlier than the tumblr post with permission from organisers due to time difference (will be released on tumblr at 3am my time).  
> I got 5 lovely prompts rather than 3, so I decided to gift 1 main and 1 short from those rather than just one! This is the extra short one

What would they think of her now?

Sayu Yagami slept surprisingly well for someone with so much blood on her hands, but the question remained, lingered even in her dreams and nightmares.

What would they think of her, if they knew?

Her father would be screaming from beyond the grave. He wouldn’t approve of what she had done, what she was still doing. He wouldn’t care that those who fell to her pen were evil, murderers and rapists and monsters. He had never seen the value in what Kira was doing.

Then again, she hadn’t either. She had been so afraid for her father and brother, two brave individuals helpless to stand against the supernatural power of Kira, that she had not been able to think about how much good Kira was doing for the world. How much the world had benefited from Kira’s judgement.

Her brother… oh, he wouldn’t shout at her. She could count on one hand the number of times he had ever raised his voice. No, he wouldn’t shout, but he would surely be disappointed. For so long he had been L, he had hunted Kira. It had taken over his life, and his life’s work had killed him – but he must have won, though his life was sacrificed, Kira had been stopped. There was no more death, no more criminals having heart attacks across the world.

Crime surged.

Riots, civil war, disaster after disaster fell upon the world.

Sayu had taken her mother and they had fled. They hid, outside Tokyo which burned so bright against the night sky with pillars of flame overtaking the skyscrapers, overtaking the Kira task force headquarters.

Her mother was killed on a shopping trip. She went to get groceries and never returned. Sayu saw the shooter on the news that same night. Saw his face, and his name.

The world were crying out with desperation. Governments across the world had finally realised. They begged for Kira.

Kira was gone, and Sayu was one of the very few still alive who knew how Kira worked. Still, she was powerless. She had no Shinigami, no notebook.

But Ryuk had always been bored, had needed amusement as much as he needed apples. No doubt he would be looking on from wherever the Shinigami lived and laughing. He would have no reason to be watching, to be listening, but she had to try. She had called out to him, begged him to return with a Notebook.

The next day the notebook had fallen right at her feet.

The first name she wrote was that of the man who had killed her mother. She understood then, how Kira could kill. How he could do it so easily and to so many. She felt nothing, saw nothing, only knew that the man was dead.

It felt good, it felt righteous, and she put pen to paper and wrote name after name, killing criminal after criminal until her fingers were bloody.

A week passed before she began to doubt herself, and with it thousands of names. The pages of the notebook never ran short.

Perhaps her father would never have understood, never have appreciated the difference she was making because of the cost. But the riots began to ebb, the world began to realise that Kira was back, and a calm slowly began to settle.

She thought Light might understand. He sought justice, had sought to overcome Kira, but not at all costs. He had been reasonable, sensible in his pursuit of the mass murderer. Not like L.

“What do you think he would say, if he were here?” Sayu asked Ryuk one day, her pen poised to write another name but hesitating, staring at the man on screen. A murderer, but… he had a family, this one. The news showed the photo of him with his two young children beside him, and she could not quite bring herself to do it. Bile rose in her throat. How many of those she killed had families? People to mourn them? Did it hurt them, as much as her family’s death hurt her?

“Heh?” Ryuk was oblivious as ever, too busy eating apples and playing Mario kart.

“Light,” she explained. “You spent a lot of time with him, when the Taskforce got hold of the notebook. What do you think he would say, if he could see me now?”

“Ah,” Ryuk set down the controller, sitting forwards on the edge of the bed. “Interesting… You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

As it always had, Ryuk’s laughter sent a chill down her spine.

“Your brother, the golden boy, the great detective,” Ryuk’s teeth were sharp and bared in a terrifying grin. “Did you really believe all that?”

“What are you on about Ryuk?”

“Kira… it runs in the family,” the Shinigami told her. “You are your brother’s heir.”

“What?” It was all she could say, all she could process. What the Shinigami was telling her… it made no sense. Light had always fought against Kira…

And yet, there had been opportunities over the years. Openings, things that even she could see. He had not taken any risks, and after the death of L and so many others the task force had approved of that, but she knew her brother. Or, she thought she did. The brother she knew would not have run and hid from Kira, not when there was any chance of catching the killer.

What the Shinigami said did make sense, and that terrified her.

Her brother… was the first Kira? He had started all this… without him, all of their family would be alive. Their father would never have died trying to catch Kira, her mother would never have been killed in the aftermath. There would be no blood on her hands.

But she had seen, she knew now, what the power of Kira could do. She understood.

She took up the pen, bringing the face of the man who had been shown with his children on the news. She wrote his name, her resolve refreshed.

Those children were as much at risk from their murderous father as his victims, after all. Light would never have allowed such ridiculous sentiment get in the way.

“What, no shouting? No tears?” Ryuk chuckled. “No megalomaniac rants?”

“Ryuk,” Sayu laughed. “Did Light…?”

“Well, only the rants.”

Sayu tried to picture that, her perfect golden boy brother losing control of his temper. She couldn’t imagine it, but she was sure it would have been a sight to behold. Even in calm disapproval he could be terrifying.

“Well, I won’t be doing that,” she diverted her attention back to the television, back to the names and faces that were publicised just for her to be able to write on her blank page.

She had thought she was dishonouring her brother’s memory with what she was doing, but she had no choice. She was the only one that could save the world from burning to the ground, the only one who could impart justice. But now all of her doubts were gone. She wasn’t dishonouring him, she was continuing from him, honouring his memory and his legacy.

If only he had told her, back when he was alive.

They were more similar than people thought, she and her brother. If Light had come to her, if he had shown her the way…

There was no point dwelling on the past. She was Kira now, and if the SPK or any fool thought that they could stop her, they were sorely mistaken.

She would create a better world. For Light.


End file.
